Related papers: Reduced Forms: Feasibility, Extremality, Optimalit…
We consider the problem of designing revenue-optimal auctions for selling two items and bidders' valuations are independent among bidders but negatively correlated among items. In this paper, we obtain the closed-form optimal auction for…
We study the classic single-item auction setting of Myerson, but under the assumption that the buyers' values for the item are distributed over finite supports. Using strong LP duality and polyhedral theory, we rederive various key results…
We study the optimal auction design problem when bidders' preferences follow the maxmin expected utility model. We suppose that each bidder's set of priors consists of beliefs close to the seller's belief, where "closeness" is defined by a…
An indivisible object may be sold to one of $n$ agents who know their valuations of the object. The seller would like to use a revenue-maximizing mechanism but her knowledge of the valuations' distribution is scarce: she knows only the…
We investigate approximately optimal mechanisms in settings where bidders' utility functions are non-linear; specifically, convex, with respect to payments (such settings arise, for instance, in procurement auctions for energy). We provide…
The intuition that profit is optimized by maximizing marginal revenue is a guiding principle in microeconomics. In the classical auction theory for agents with linear utility and single-dimensional preferences, Bulow and Roberts (1989) show…
We study a seller who sells a single good to multiple bidders with uncertainty over the joint distribution of bidders' valuations, as well as bidders' higher-order beliefs about their opponents. The seller only knows the (possibly…
We study revenue variance in the sale of $k$ homogeneous items to risk-neutral, unit-demand bidders with independent private values. Although the Revenue Equivalence Theorem implies that standard auctions generate the same expected revenue,…
Classical optimal auction theory assumes that bids reach the seller directly. We study how this picture changes when a revenue-maximizing intermediary controls access to the seller's auction. Motivated by blockchain auctions, online…
In the design and analysis of revenue-maximizing auctions, auction performance is typically measured with respect to a prior distribution over inputs. The most obvious source for such a distribution is past data. The goal is to understand…
We provide algorithms that learn simple auctions whose revenue is approximately optimal in multi-item multi-bidder settings, for a wide range of valuations including unit-demand, additive, constrained additive, XOS, and subadditive. We…
We provide a reduction from revenue maximization to welfare maximization in multi-dimensional Bayesian auctions with arbitrary (possibly combinatorial) feasibility constraints and independent bidders with arbitrary (possibly combinatorial)…
We provide a constructive proof of Border's theorem [Bor91, HR15a] and its generalization to reduced-form auctions with asymmetric bidders [Bor07, MV10, CKM13]. Given a reduced form, we identify a subset of Border constraints that are…
This paper studies optimal auction design when valuations depend endogenously on post-auction collaboration between the seller and the winning bidder. Both parties exert non-contractible efforts after the auction, generating a double moral…
We study the problem of designing optimal auctions under restrictions on the set of permissible allocations. In addition to allowing us to restrict to deterministic mechanisms, we can also indirectly model non-additive valuations. We prove…
We study individual rational, Pareto optimal, and incentive compatible mechanisms for auctions with heterogeneous items and budget limits. For multi-dimensional valuations we show that there can be no deterministic mechanism with these…
We consider the sample complexity of revenue maximization for multiple bidders in unrestricted multi-dimensional settings. Specifically, we study the standard model of $n$ additive bidders whose values for $m$ heterogeneous items are drawn…
The paper studies the problem of auction design in a setting where the auctioneer accesses the knowledge of the valuation distribution only through statistical samples. A new framework is established that combines the statistical decision…
When agents with independent priors bid for a single item, Myerson's optimal auction maximizes expected revenue, whereas Vickrey's second-price auction optimizes social welfare. We address the natural question of trade-offs between the two…
We present a polynomial-time algorithm that, given samples from the unknown valuation distribution of each bidder, learns an auction that approximately maximizes the auctioneer's revenue in a variety of single-parameter auction environments…